For Richer or Repo
By Karyn Lyndon

Here's the story told by the heroine herself:

"I’m Andrea Thorne, your average, twenty-something heiress. Some people think my story is hilarious, but you wouldn’t think so if it happened to you. It all starts on a really bad day in Dallas when I find out Dad won’t help me with a financial dilemma. On top of that I’m feeling some strange sparks with this repo guy (read: not my type) who’s trying to steal my Porsche. Everything goes downhill from there as my rich-girl lifestyle fades away like a dry-clean-only Prada print in the wash."

“How much is it this time, Andrea?

My Dad’s will-she-always-be-a-burden-to-my-bank-account tone through my phone made me quake with self-loathing and humiliation.  Mixed with those emotions was a touch of indignation about having to go through this every-single-time.

“I don’t know,” I squeaked, fighting back tears of anger and helplessness.  “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Okay.  I did have a tendency to live beyond my means and I was always terrible at math.  But in a way it was Franklin Edward Thornton the Third’s fault along with his perfectly coiffed wife, Evelyn.  I mean, they never taught me how to budget, how to scrimp, save, clip coupons or, heaven-forbid, do without.  All they taught me was how to order in the finest restaurants, shop in the most elite boutiques, travel in the chicest circles and lavish myself in luxury.  In fact, I was a veritable master at all those things thanks to them.

“They say they’re going to--to--,” I was determined not to cry, “repossess my cute little pearl white Porsche if I don’t phone-pay them all the back payments by this afternoon.”

The thought of some subterraneous car thief cloaked by darkness skulking around my high rise and stealing my pride and joy sent chills up my spine.

“How much, Andrea?” By his tone I could tell my Dad’s patience was wearing as thin as his hair.

“Well, that plus the electricity and the cell phone and the spa membership and the back condo payments--” I shuddered, pretending to calculate in my head even though I knew the exact figure that would save my sorry but firm, shapely ass.  I just didn’t want to hear the number out loud.

“Four-thousand and fifty should do it,” I blurted into the receiver, figuring that sounded better than the actual five thousand I really needed. Maybe I could hold off on the annual spa dues and Nordstrom’s until next month.

I held my breath waiting for the avalanche of admonishment I would receive as part of my prepayment of debt services rendered.   I knew I shouldn’t have bought the new Porsche, and I didn’t actually need the high rise balcony view of downtown Dallas and I never worried about my phone minutes, credit card balances or turning off a light.  Because I knew Daddy would take care of it.

“I’m sorry, Andrea, but you’re just never going to learn if I keep bailing you out.  I warned you the last umpteen times you needed to trim expenses and quit depending on us.  I guess you thought I was kidding.”

“No, that’s not true!  That’s why I waited this long.  That’s why things are so bad.  I really wanted to take care of it myself.” My last word ended in a sob.  I’d been known to use my high drama to get what I wanted from my father, but this time the desperation and tears were real. Because those big, bad, ugly car-jackers were REALLY going to take my precious Porsche away.

“I’m saying this once and then I’m hanging up because I’m late for my flight. I know you make better than average income at the newspaper; I sign your checks.  So, either you cut back to a lifestyle you can afford, and that may be without your pretty new Porsche, or you get another source of income besides mine. I don’t care if it’s a rich, sugar Daddy or a part time job as a streetwalker!”  His volume increased with each word.  At this point he was almost to a shout. “I was pretty sure I made myself clear the last time I gave you money--the gravy train already left the station, Andrea, and your free pass has expired!”

Dad’s demoralizing metaphoric bellow was followed by the forlorn sound of a dial tone.

“Daddy?” I queried the lonely, resonate buzz.

Someone was coming to snatch my car right out from under my nose so the only logical solution was to hide it.  Which sounds easy enough, except I didn’t want to park my precious Porsche just anywhere!  And once I parked it (wherever) I had to somehow get myself back to the condo.

Or they could confiscate it at work.  THAT would be embarrassing.

After imagining several different scenarios that involved long hikes through bad parts of town and, heaven forbid, bus rides, I came to the conclusion I couldn’t hide my car feasibly without someone’s help. 

There was no way I could ask Blaine for the money. As top salesman for MegaCompuDrive Limited, he had already informed me we wouldn’t be going out much this month because June (which was historically a bad month for computer sales) had been a bad month. He probably had the money I needed stashed away in one of his stock portfolios, but even I knew that was too much to ask a guy who had actually toiled for his net worth.  

I couldn’t face Lenore about this, either.  To her, I was all things rich and wonderful.  And I guess, not too long ago, that was true. I had loaned her money here and there, bought her cute, little, expensive gifts and paid her way to Cancun because I wanted my best friend to go with me.  I enjoyed having her adoration and admiration. I wasn’t going to spoil it now.

No. I had to do this alone.  I figured I could at least hide my car at Blaine’s until he got back from his sales trip. I punched the code quickly into his security gate, surveyed my rearview mirror for anyone suspicious and drove to the back of his apartment building.  In a spot near the brick fencing, I parked and slipped out of my glove-soft leather interior. Shutting the door, I gave the car a little kiss with my finger.  As I walked away I suddenly wished instead of Pearl White, which at this moment was shining in the moon with a high-gloss pearlessence, I had picked the Midnight black. But at the time I signed the papers I had no idea I’d be trying to hide it from barrio bandits gone legit.

I was feeling pretty smug as I headed through the parking lot.  This wouldn’t be so bad.  I’d take the bus in the morning; then drive in to work from here.  Those road robbers would never be able to find my car. As I walked, my keys and a wad of dollar bills for the bus tugged on my pink velour Juicy Couture pants pocket.  If I didn’t hitch them up soon, the guys loitering ahead would find out I desperately needed a bikini wax.

I felt quite naked in these extremely low-rise, high-priced sweats with the coordinating bra-tank.  In my peripheral vision I could see my nipples protruding through the thin white knit, bouncing merrily along. Even though it was a still, balmy night in July, I suddenly longed for my matching jacket. 

The teenaged hoodlums were smoking in a cluster under a stoop.  I could feel them leer at me like I was some kind of strawberry ice cream they’d like to lick. 

Finally, out of their drooling gaze, I rounded the corner. In front of Blaine’s apartment I stopped in mid stride.  What I saw hit me like cymbals crashing on either side of my face, causing my ears to ring and my cheeks to flash fiery-hot.

It was Blaine’s Mercedes parked in his usual spot. He’s not due back from Chicago for two more days!  Then I saw them.  Next to Blaine’s car hanging from the rearview mirror of a very familiar cherry red Cougar were fuzzy red dice with rhinestone dots.  A souvenir I brought back from Vegas last summer--a gift for Lenore.

Dead in my tracks, I felt trapped.  Ahead and to the right might be two of the most important relationships in my life on the very brink of mass destruction.  Behind me were ravenous ice cream eaters.  Sickening dread washed through my tanned, flat tummy.

About that time Blaine’s front door opened and Lenore stepped out.  She turned, her long dark hair flowing around her naturally tanned shoulders like a cascade of shiny silk, and wrapped her covetous arms around MY boyfriend. Then she lifted her impertinent little chin and gave him a kiss that would tide over a sailor ‘til his return from a six-month stint at sea.

I instinctively backed up, sure I would puke at any moment, and turned to run.  I couldn’t see.  My eyes blurred with the sting of betrayal.  As I blundered ahead, I yanked my bulky keys out of my pocket before they dragged my sweats down around my knees.

I heard the ice cream lickers shout, “Hey, baby.  Look at her run!  Bada boom, bada boom…”

Somehow I managed to unlock and slam myself into my car, starting it up through bleary tears, humiliation and utter pain. I blindly drove around the backside of the complex and pulled out of the security gate.

When I finally got to the gate of my own building I realized I shouldn’t drive in.  The guys licensed to steal might be waiting for me—or rather my Porsche.  I parked on the street and slumped over the steering wheel, feeling the helplessness and hopelessness of the situation.  It wasn’t just the fact that at any moment my car could be taken, and it wasn’t just that my best friend was fucking my boyfriend.  It was my ENTIRE sucky day crashing down on me like my grand piano dropped from my 12^th story balcony.  Hiccupping sobs and pounding fists on the dash made me feel like a tantruming two-year-old.  Still, it didn’t seem enough of an expression for my pain.

My actions must have seemed way too dramatic to the guy who was tapping on my window, though. 

“Excuse me, Miss, are you all right?”

I looked over to tell him to go away and leave me alone. Then I saw the wrecker in my rearview mirror.  I wasn’t positive but I had a queasy feeling. This man was my repo guy.

***

The minute I saw the girl beatin’ on the dashboard I

knew it was gonna be another one of those nights. The truth be known, I’d rather face gunfire like at the last place than deal with an emotional female. I hated to interrupt her bawlin’ because I could tell she was just gettin’ started. But I had four more vehicles on my list and in this profession time was money.

I tapped on the window and asked her if she was all right.  Of course, I felt kinda stupid askin’ it since obviously she wasn’t.  But I didn’t know what else to say and I really needed to start loadin’ up the Porsche.  Even though her eyes looked like a wet raccoon’s and her long frizzy blond hair was ever-which-way from her carryin’ on, when she turned her head I could tell she could probably be a hot babe under the right circumstances. Then, the next look she gave said what her first look told me anyway. She was a bitch.  A hot bitch.  They were a dime a dozen as far as I was concerned.  A sour disposition, a better-than-everyone attitude and a silver spoon stuck completely up her ass made her a total useless waste of smooth, soft, firm skin.

The electric window kinda purred down with that high dollar sound only a Porsche can make.

“Can’t you see I’m upset?  I need some privacy, if you don’t mind!”

“I’m sorry, M’am.”  Man, I didn’t want to say what I had to say next, but I didn’t have a choice. I was countin’ on the dough from a full schedule tonight.  I didn’t have time to mollycoddle some high-strung female.  “I have orders to repo your car.  You’ll have to get out.”

She looked at me through little slits in her eyes.  I could see the muscles in her face clench and unclench like she wanted to shove her knee real hard between my legs and make my balls draw up in agony.  Then her face changed and all at once she looked like I’d just told her I wanted to spit roast her firstborn and chop it up it into baby potpies.  It took everything I had to stand firm in my spot by her window.  But I knew if she smelled even the slightest hint of fear, I’d have my manhood served up to me like a sausage platter at Dickies Smokehouse.

Then her face changed again.  “Please don’t take my car,” she shrieked and clouded over with another gully washer.

“I’m sorry, but I have to take it.  It’s my job.”  I shoved the Porsche paperwork toward the window.  “See?”

“You mean to tell me you make a living by rendering poor, defenseless women car-less?”

I had to stifle a laugh as my head started to ache.  I doubted Miss Porsche was either poor or defenseless.  For a skinny girl she did have a nice set of tits, though.  I could see them clear as a bell through her tight white top.

“No, I don’t do this for a living,” I said sarcastically.  I tended to get that way when I was being attacked by the opposite sex. “I’m really the CEO of a big corporation during the day. Repo is my hobby, you know, like needlepoint.  It relaxes me.”

She rolled her eyes, threw one more little fit trying to untangle herself from the seatbelt and unlock the door.  I stepped back as she clamored out. Even in her ungraceful state of rage her body was delicate and deer like, standing in at about five-foot-seven. As my daddy would say, she had good bone structure. She just needed a little meat on her.

She gave me a flutter of her eyelashes like she suddenly wanted to have my children and handed me her keys. As I reached out she threw them into the top of a huge cedar tree on the other side of her gated community.

“There.  She’s all yours!” 

She stomped over to the gate wiping her nose with the back of her hand and started fiddling with the code pad.

“Oh, Jesus, why’d you have to go and do that?”

I climbed halfway up the fence made of lethal metal spears, then vaulted over.  The hard landing made my head throb in pain.  As I reached for the tall cedar trunk with my bare hands, I imagined I was grabbing and shaking her long, white, delicate neck.  Sure enough I heard the keys clatter to the pavement.  Then I noticed she was still trying to decipher her code.

“What’s the matter?” I called as I scooped up the keys.  I walked over to the gate and opened it easily from the inside for her.

“I don’t know. Nothing’s going right for me today. Just leave me alone,” she said, brushing past me arrogantly. 

Damn it, she smelled good.  And it wasn’t any Wal-Mart bath and splash either.  I could tell it was the pricey stuff.

“Uh--don’t you need your keys to get in your apartment?”

She glared at me just like my stepmother did during Thanksgiving dinner when I said her butt might look smaller if she wouldn’t wear stretch britches. At the tender age of seven I thought it was good fashion advice.  I hadn’t quite figured out how sensitive women were about their backsides yet.

“It’s not an apartment.  It’s a condo!”

***

Andrea

God, I hated the way this smug, arrogant bastard just stood there waiting for me to come back and get my keys.  Okay, he was right.  I did need them to get in.  But he didn't have to rub my nose in it.  Just as I tried to snatch them out of his hand he pulled them away, clutching my genuine Porsche-emblem key ring to his chest.

"Hey, wait a minute," he said.  “Aren’t you gonna thank me?  I got ‘em outta the tree for you.  I don’t need them to repo your car.”

He was tall, well over six feet.  I looked up at him, my head cocked back so I could give him one final glare.

“Thank you,” I said as I grabbed them from him.

His face seemed fairly innocent, shining under the streetlight.  I guess it was that scrubbed, farm-boy, "I'm just trying to make an honest living" attitude that both irritated me and made me pretty sure he wasn't a serial killer.  Then I saw some blood trickle down his neck.

"Oh my God!  You're bleeding!"  He swiped the side of his head and studied the bright red ooze on his hand.  Then he reached back behind his ear and into his dark brown hair that was cut close, roper-style, wincing as he probed.

"Those lowlifes musta shot me!"

I had to wonder what exactly was the definition of a lowlife from his vantage point.  "Someone's been shooting at you?"

"Things got a little out of hand at the job right before yours.  I had to leave without the yellow Trans AM because someone was takin’ pot shots at me with a pellet gun."

"People shoot at you?"  Of course I'd heard about the dangers associated with repossessing cars, but I guess I just thought that kind of thing only happened on TV.

He nodded but his pale green eyes had a glassy look to them that worried me.

"Are you all right?"

He nodded again but his lanky body teetered a bit and he grabbed my arm to steady himself.  "Now that you mention it, I'm feelin' kinda woozy."

"Well don't pass out here!  I'm sure we've already made quite enough of a scene.  The homeowner’s association would be appalled if they knew what was going on.  And for God's sake don't bleed on the sidewalk!"

I said a little silent prayer thanking heaven nobody had driven in while I was "negotiating" with my repo man.  I begrudgingly put his arm around my shoulders, figuring rendering first aid inside was infinitely better than out here on display.  I slowly led him into the building, the "whoosh" of air conditioning feeling orgasmic against my icky skin. I didn't “do” sweat well unless it involved my personal trainer, Larrs. I couldn't WAIT to slip into my Jacuzzi tub and get the filth of this day off of me.

I said another little prayer that he wouldn't faint in the elevator as I pressed the button for the 12^th floor.

"Where are you taking me?"

"I'm going to wash off your wound and find you a Band Aid.  And then I'm going to give you my Porsche key because I don't want you to hurt it by hot-wiring it or whatever you do when you steal someone’s car.  That's how much I love it."  I ended my talk with a little whimper.

"Are you trying to make me like you--because it won't work.  You're not my type anyway."

"Oh--" I fumed, "--don't flatter yourself.  And excuse me while I count my blessings that I'm not your type.  I assure you my middle name is not Sue or May, I have never dipped cones at a Dairy Queen and the only boots to grace these silky calves are knee-length and probably cost more than your entire homestead, thank you very much!"

“Well, la-tee-da!”

Finally on the 12^th floor, with him thanking me (loudly and sarcastically) for my kindness and me hushing him up, worried the neighbors would hear me with my wounded cowboy, I saw the envelope taped to my door.  I propped Howdy Doody up against the wall, ripped off the letter and attempted to push my key into the lock. 

Trying it both ways five or six times, I finally gave up.  "Jesus H. Christ, will this day never end?  I feel like I've walked into Alice's Looking Glass.  Nothing fucking works!" I gave the door a kick with the leather sole of my pink Marc Jacobs sandal.

"Maybe you should read the letter."

I really hated it when this ignorant, no-class hayseed kept saying things that made sense.  I opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of crisp white stationery with my condominium’s logo “Parkway Manor” engraved on the top.  I read the first line, "Notice of Eviction," then scanned down to “changed the locks” and let the paper drop from my sweaty fingers to the carpet.  At the same time my repo man slid to the floor leaving a trail of glistening blood on the fresh white paint outside my door.

Not on the wall!  Amazingly, supported there by the door jamb, he actually looked peaceful. So peaceful I was beginning to wonder if he were still alive.  I would have called 9-1-1 but my phone was in the car.

I put my hand in front of his nose and I thought I felt warm air but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t even find my own pulse during workouts with Larrs so I didn’t bother checking—uh--jeez, I didn’t even know the poor dead guy’s name.  I bent down so I could put my ear to his chest.  Maybe I can hear his heart beat.  Just as I got about eye level his eyes popped open and we both screamed.

“Aaaah!  I thought you were dead!”

“What the…” He wearily reached up to feel his head wound.

“Don’t touch it!  It’ll get infected!”

“Oh yeah,” he said looking at me like my identity was somewhere in the misty haze of his memory, “you’re Ms. Porsche.”

“Yes, that would be me.  Look, we need to get you to a doctor.  Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

I helped him up onto wobbly legs.

“Can we go inside?  I think I need to sit down for just a minute.”

“Remember? I’m locked out.  I’ve been…” the words caught in my throat. The recent events were too embarrassing to recount, “…evicted.”

“This just isn’t your day, is it?” he asked as if he thought it was funny.

“It’s not yours, either,” I reminded, helping him back to the elevator, hoping he wouldn’t pass out on me again.

Finally back on the street he seemed a bit more alert.  “I’m feeling better now.”

“Well, maybe so, but you need to get checked out.  You really don’t want to mess around with a hole in your head.  Let me drive you to the hospital.”

“Hospital!  No way!” 

I didn’t care enough to argue with him although I did protest slightly when he asked me to help him load MY car onto HIS tow truck.  It was a sad sight watching my precious baby being hoisted and chained like some common criminal. I know it was just a car, but it was really my first car.  All the others had been gifts from Dad.  This one I bought myself, well, except Blaine had been there to help me negotiate the deal.

Blaine and Lenore!  I had almost forgotten about that little detail of my day.  How could he?  How could she?  Lost in thoughts of brutal betrayal I heard Mr. Repo talking to me.

“Do you need a lift somewhere?”

“Well, yes.  But I’m not riding with you!  You’ve had trauma to the head!”

“I’m fine now, really.  I think I just dislodged the pellet when I jumped over the fence.  It’s just a scratch.”

I reluctantly climbed into the cab and made him promise to pull over at the first sign of lightheadedness.

“Do you usually give people a ride after you take their car away from them?”

He looked at me thoughtfully.  “Well, no.  But they don’t usually get evicted from their apartment--excuse me, condo--on the same day.”

I asked myself exactly when my life had spun completely out of control.  And the answer came back in nanoseconds.  That would be today.